We found a neat little utility program that answers a frequent
reader question: What's all that stuff running in the background?

The utility is called "Security Task Manager" and it not only tells
you what's running but what it does and what you can do with it. It has
a lot more detail than Windows' own task manager and provides "red
zones" to identify potential problems.

Unbeknownst to us, we had over 90 programs running in the
background. The potentially dangerous stuff was listed first and colored
with the darkest shade of red. As we went down the list the colors
changed toward pink and then white. You can select any background
program and stop it, quarantine it or remove it entirely; we removed
about a dozen.

As to why some programs run in the background every time you start up,
only the programmer knows for sure. The usual reason is they just can't
believe you don't want to have their program available at a second's
notice. Just what's dangerous and what's not can be a matter of
interpretation. Google Desktop Search was listed as a red zone program,
for example, but it's harmless and runs in the background because it
continually indexes everything on your hard drive so you can find it
quickly later.

Pop-up blockers are always running in the background and you almost
certainly want to keep those; anti-spyware programs also run in the
background. If you're suspicious of something but unsure if it's
possibly harmful, you can quarantine it; that way you can always restore
it. Removing programs running in the background will make your computer
run faster and more trouble free. Security Task Manager is $29 to buy,
free to try, from
www.neuber.com.

The best of Encarta

There are three main encyclopedias worth reviewing but we don't
have the space to do them all at once. We'll start with Microsoft's
Encarta and do the others in the next few weeks.

Encarta is the top seller on disk and the most visited reference
site on the worldwide web. After using either disk or web for a few
moments you can easily see why. This is a multi-media extravaganza. What
started out as a little regarded reference work (it was originally based
on the Funk & Wagnall's Desktop Encyclopedia) has been enhanced into an
amazing piece of work.

The "Premium" version of Encarta is on a single DVD that lists for
$50. Both child and adult versions are on the same disk. Both versions
offer music, speech, videos and terrific educational games. There are
63,000 articles, a dictionary, thesaurus, book of quotations,
translators, maps, homework helper, etc.

Encarta has hundreds of sound clips, videos, animations, clips from the
Discovery Channel, and interactive games. We listened to classical music
and pop tunes, prose and poetry, political debates and oral arguments
before the Supreme Court. We watched a catfish walk across land and a
goat climb a mountain. We put human organs in their proper place in the
body puzzle, matched famous buildings to their correct locations and
Presidents to their deeds. The math tutor taught us a step-by-step way
to solve a variety of math problems, at many levels of difficulty.

The worldwide web has created an explosion of additional material
for encyclopedias. You must be online to use this. Encarta has links to
many thousands of sites: radio stations around the world (we listened to
"King Radio" for several hours), videos, museums and articles on just
about any subject: including recipes for dishes from the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance. Some of the ingredients are hard to duplicate: a dish
labeled "A simple char," for example, turns out to be a roasted ox.

Encarta is more fun than a video game. Every time we turn it on
it's an hour or more before we can leave. Every minute is a learning
experience. A new version comes out every Summer, and the previous
versions then sell for half price or less. Or it's free to try for 30
days from the web site:
www.microsoft.com/encarta.

Home movies

Mail in your old video tapes and for $5 this outfit will turn them
into digital format. You can also make them available online at
www.homemovies.com and all your friends and relatives can spend many
happy hours watching your kids eat cereal or seeing you try out the new
trampoline. You can store them online for $10 a month, or, for $15 you
can edit a home movie online and burn it to a DVD.

Linux is an operating system that has created a stir in the
computer industry as a possible substitute for Windows. The book comes
with a disk containing the "Mandrake" version of Linux and it works
right off the disk, without being installed on the hard drive. The
interface looks much like Windows itself. The disk comes with "Open
Office," containing lots of programs, including a web browser, media
player and word processor, which Joy immediately used to write a letter,
print it out and save it to a thumb drive. This is a quick and easy way
to try out Linux. We could even listen to a CD of Cole Porter's "Kiss Me
Kate."